MotoGP 2005 - Round 4

Ducati Marlboro Team rider Loris Capirossi ran strong in the early stages of today's French Grand Prix at Le Mans, eventually finishing round four of the 2005 MotoGP World Championship in seventh position. Team-mate Carlos Checa had a luckless afternoon, he was the innocent victim of a first-lap melee, after he had run 0.6 seconds fastest than next man in this morning warm-up. The race, run on a dry track after two days of ever-changing weather conditions, was won by reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi.

"This was a complicated weekend because the weather changed every session - sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes in between - which made it difficult to work on tyre choice," said Ducati MotoGP project manager Livio Suppo. "We are still in the early stages of our relationship with Bridgestone, we are on a learning curve, and we learned a lot today, our second dry race with them. Carlos chose a tyre with a more durable compound, so it's a shame we couldn't verify its performance over race distance. Loris was able to run with the leaders early on, which was good, it shows that we have a good package. Now we just need to continue working at making the tyres even better. We are looking forward to Mugello."

The Ducati Marlboro Team stays at Le Mans for two days of intensive testing tomorrow and Tuesday.

Loris Capirossi played a starring role in the first third of today's race, riding with early leaders Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden. But after one-third distance the Ducati Marlboro Team man began to lose rear traction and had to ease off. Even then he maintained an impressive pace to finish less than three seconds down on sixth-finisher Nicky Hayden.

"I had a fantastic start!" said Capirossi, who gunned his Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici into third place from the fourth row of the grid. "After that I found that I could easily stay with the leaders, the bike was working really well, so it seemed like my Desmosedici could fight for a podium finish. But from lap ten onwards I needed more rear traction, so I had to ease my pace. It's not been easy here because we only had one fully dry session, so I wasn't able to try so many tyres. I chose the same tyre that worked so well during my ten-lap endurance run yesterday afternoon. Of course, I'm not happy with seventh, but I am happy that we were strong for ten laps. Our relationship with Bridgestone has only just started, we're improving step by step."

Carlos Checa started today's French GP in confident mood after setting the pace in this morning's warm-up session, when he was 0.6 seconds faster than the next man. But the Ducati Marlboro Team rider was out of luck in the race, crashing out after making contact with Max Biaggi at the very first chicane. Biaggi was forced to run wide to avoid slowing riders ahead and Checa couldn't miss him.

"Max moved off line to avoid someone and I couldn't brake because I was already leaned over into the corner," explained Checa.

"Sometimes racing is like this, but it's not easy to accept such bad luck, especially when we had the chance of a good result here. The bike is working so well at the moment, it's getting better all the time and we are doing everything we can to score good results. I can't carry this bad luck forever, so I'm looking forward to Mugello."

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